Hit the road, Jack!

...And don’t try to be Evil Knievel

The summer of 1968 is when we moved back into the city, to Idora Street in the Forest Hill Extension of San Francisco. I was 10 years old when I started 5th grade at West Portal Elementary School and had to make new friends again. We had been living in Santa Rosa for 2 years before this, and that’s where I first learned how to ride a bike.

I wasn’t happy about the move, especially since I was really enjoying my life in Santa Rosa. The summers were hot, and Santa Rosa Creek bordered the backyard of our 2-acre property. I also had many friends there. My days were filled with outdoor activities: swimming, hiking, wading in the creek, catching crawdads and tadpoles, and riding our bikes all over Sonoma County. I couldn't imagine life being any better for a 10-year-old boy. Then, moving to San Francisco in the summer of ‘68 was depressing. Even though we had lived in the city 2 years earlier, this felt like I was pulled out of paradise and put into a cold, windy, foggy city that I would never appreciate or accept. I mean, seriously, 51 degrees, wind, AND fog in the middle of July? But it didn’t take long for me to make new friends again, and I soon gained a new appreciation for city life.

From 10 years old onward, my now ‘city’ friends and I explored San Francisco on our bikes. We rode miles in all directions: up to Twin Peaks, then to the beach, across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito, and through St. Francis Woods, Stern Grove, and Mt. Davidson. These were always popular bike routes. Golden Gate Park felt like an endless maze of paths that seemed to snake in all directions, but I could always count on ending up at Ocean Beach. To my surprise, Laguna Honda Hospital had some great paved roads we could ride on, and it felt like a small city in itself. Helmets weren’t even a thought in those days as we peddled viciously through the streets of the city.

It was 1973, and I was now 15. I went for a bike ride with Steve and Kent, as I had on many clear days before. My bike was stolen earlier that summer, so I borrowed my sister’s bike, which she had left parked in the garage. She was traveling in Peru at the time, so getting her permission wasn’t in my plan. …And I later found out that the bike actually belonged to her friend, Loël.

It was a typical cool day in San Francisco; anyone outside the city would consider it too cold, but with the sun shining, the roads were ours. We started at Tower Market and rode up to Twin Peaks to take in the view. The usual parked tour buses were there, spewing out vacationers in shorts and Hawaiian shirts. And there wasn’t much other activity up there that day. After a brief visit, we rode down the north side of Twin Peaks Boulevard towards Clarendon. The winding road from the top of Twin Peaks made for an inviting speedway, and there were barely any cars on it that day. We glided down the paved asphalt, leaning into the turns, and I felt the wind on my face and a sense of freedom as we soared down the smooth pavement. We reached Clarendon Avenue and turned down to 17th & Clayton. From there, we continued down 17th Street and took a left onto Roosevelt Way as we worked our way over to States Street. *(For those who don’t know this area, Corona Heights is part of the Castro/Upper Market area and just north of Eureka Valley. States Street stretches a few blocks and is a long, gradual downhill slope. It passes by the Randall Museum and ends at Castro Street.)

As we headed onto States Street, I could see the smooth, vast, inviting roadway that beckoned us. Kent had a speedometer on his bike, so we could gauge our momentum as we picked up speed. We glided down the middle of the street between the parked cars. Steve immediately started pedaling faster and hurried ahead of us as if to challenge us to a race. We accepted the challenge and began pedaling harder. Kent and I were almost neck-to-neck, but he managed to get ahead of me. He was determined to catch up with Steve. At last glance, Kent’s speedometer read 58 MPH as we approached the soft curve in the road. Steve was nowhere in sight, but I could hear him yelling back at us from a distance. I couldn’t understand what he was yelling because his voice echoed against the rapid stream of houses and parked cars.

As we leaned into the curve in the road, is when I saw the speed bumps. ...three of them in a row. Kent was on my left and just managed to swerve to the side and barely miss them. I… didn’t stand a chance. With no time to react and at nearly 60 MPH, my front tire hit the first speed bump and bounced it five feet into the air. Just as it came down to meet the second bump, my rear tire hit the first one, which catapulted me headfirst towards the pavement. I made impact with the road and heard a ‘crack,’ a sound like dry wood splitting, as I tumbled and rolled, eventually landing on my back, still sliding rapidly on the blacktop. As I was sliding, I looked back and could see my bike tumbling behind me. Almost as if in slow motion, it tumbled end over end until it finally made impact with a parked truck and wedged itself underneath. I could see fabric from my jacket blowing in the wind, shredding down to my skin as I continued sliding down the asphalt.

What seemed like an eternity probably took less than 10 seconds, and I finally came to rest in the middle of the street. Lying there motionless, I stared up at the sky as clouds rolled above me with an eerie silence, and I wondered if I was still alive.

Then, I saw Kent and Steve standing over me, along with an unfamiliar woman. She happened to be leaving work at the Randall Museum and witnessed the accident. While I very slowly tried to sit up, Steve reached out to help me. I took his hand and heard a “crack”. Instantly, I felt intense pain in my right shoulder and yelled out. I was in shock but managed to give the woman my phone number. She immediately called my dad, and he drove over to pick me up. If this had happened today, I would have taken an ambulance ride. By the time my dad got there, I was more composed. He helped me into the truck and put the mangled bike in the back. Steve and Kent rode their bikes home, and my dad drove me to Letterman Hospital in the Presidio.

When we arrived at the hospital, they rushed me into the emergency room and started cleaning my wounds. They scrubbed the embedded gravel out of my skin with antiseptic, while I endured the pain. I was then rolled into radiology for X-rays, which revealed I had broken my clavicle, a fractured skull, and a concussion. They inserted a large syringe into my shoulder to numb the pain, and I could feel the needle making contact with the broken bone and let out a muffled groan. After a night in the hospital, I was sent home the next day, wearing a shoulder sling for the next 6 weeks. Recovery was slow and painful when I started my first year at McAteer High School, but boy, did I have a good story of ‘what I did last summer’.

...Sorry about your bike, Loël.

“I owe you a new bike” will be engraved on my tombstone.